Sunday evening at Fat Fairy H.Q......

OK - just looked at the time and realised that it is now evening!  Really think someone is stealing time from me....  We've had an extremely windy day here in Warwickshire and I'm still not sure it was such a good idea to put the washing out....

After yesterday's Blog, I thought I'd try and post a few photo's of both knitting and jewellery items! Those of you who do read our Blog may remember that back last summer I took a trip 'up north' to stay with my son and his partner and we had a quick shopping trip down to the Trafford Centre in Manchester to purchase the cot from John Lewis.  As would be expected from John Lewis, it was a very smooth transaction and the cot was duly delivered early in September.  While we were at the Trafford Centre, we also popped into Mama's + Papa's and my future daughter-in-law fell in love with one of their blankets.  However, yours truly here was horrified at the price and said I would try and find the same colour wool and knit one for my (then) future grandchild.  The blanket was in colours I would never have picked for a baby - cream background with a burnt orange and dark olive green.... Little did I know at that time, just how difficult it would prove to track down these colours!

However, never having been one to be beaten, in September I had a girlie day out with my lovely friend Mrs Woodhouse, having promised her ages ago a trip to the Trafford Knitwear outlet in Hinckley.  For those of you not local, Trafford Knitwear is an outlet that sells mainly Per Una (but now also other High Street labels) at a much lower price.... and always worth a visit.  We had a lovely day out, starting with morning coffee + cake at the Garden Barn on the way to Lutterworth (again, well worth a visit if you are local), then over to Trafford Knitwear and several items purchased by both of us.  I work on the basis that if Trafford Knitwear are kind enough to stock the item in my size and it would come in handy, then it would be rude not to purchase it...... Then we went into Hinckley for lunch at the Art Cafe (another lovely place for lunch or coffee!) which just so happens to be next door to a good, old fashioned wool shop.  It would have been rude not to pop in and my eagle-eyed friend spied some wool which looked very much like the colours I needed (yippee!).  It wasn't actually baby wool but was, in fact, pure new wool so would keep baby nice + warm.  The 3 colours were duly purchased and a couple of days later I made a start.

It was a very simple pattern (just garter stitch) and as it grew, the blanket got quite heavy but I was really pleased at how the wool was knitting up - had to pop back and purchase more of the cream which was the background colour. When baby arrived in late November, I was still knitting away, so took the blanket up with me and sat knitting at every opportunity!  I would well recommend this wool as it was lovely to knit with and once washed, kept it's shape really well.  Finally finished in January and blanket was delivered to baby granddaughter!  This is said blanket - halfway through knitting.

My future daughter-in-law was really pleased with it and with this cold spell, it's certainly getting lots of use!

We mentioned yesterday that we've been doing some bespoke jewellery orders, including our gemstone bookmarks which are proving a very popular line, so thought we'd share a photo with you!  These can be made to order using gemstone's or a mixture of beads etc or Swarovski crystals - in any colour - the choice is endless really and they are £8-99 plus P+P, so if you'd like to order one, please just contact us!

Love + blessings from Fat Fairy HQ on this very blustery Sunday evening!
xx